I could, for instance, be watching the fourth season of Weeds instead. After the awkwardly prescient forest fire of the season three finale left Agrestic (and apparently its “Little Boxes”) behind, looks like Nancy heads down Mehico way for round four. Says showrunner Jenji Kohan in EW: ”It’s an election year, and we really wanted to deal with issues like immigration, drug trafficking, and culture clash. Moving south and going to Mexico just puts us in the eye of the storm.” Too bad Ugly Betty (kind of) got there first. I’m wary of whether or not Weeds’ flaming deus ex machina can jump-start the series after its flagging third season, especially with a new bid to political relevancy; did Andy’s almost-Iraq subplot really work? The ep where Shane went up against the ultra-conservative summer camp definitely did. Only time will tell (next Monday, Showtime), but for those seeking something a bit more consistent from HBO, Jr., try the stellar second season of This American Life on for size.

In the meantime, I’ll be busying myself with Swingtown. My expectations sufficiently lowered, I actually thought 1.1 was pretty decent. What weirder way to fill the void left by Lost than The Wonder Years with group fucking? I mean sure, it’s as shallow as a wading pool, but it’s summer TV, for Christ’s sake! And it’s got resident Deadwood hottie Alma Garret dropping qualudes and getting frisky with an airline pilot… on CBS! Win-win, folks.